POMONA >> Within about a week, signs will be posted notifying the public that parking in a neighborhood on the northeastern edge of Fairplex will be limited to residents.

Pomona City Council members unanimously approved Monday night the creation of a preferential parking district for what the city refers to as the Fair Avenue neighborhood, according to a city staff report. The district will encompass Fair Avenue, Laredo Avenue, Lasena Court, Munster Street and the 700 block of Arrow Highway.

The request to create the parking district was made by Councilman Robert Torres, who represents the area, after speaking with neighborhood residents.

Resident Chris Slocum told the council Monday that in recent months, people who don’t live in the neighborhood have been parking there, leaving behind waste including used tires, motor oil, bottles of urine and discarded condoms.

Although parking is limited to residents on the Fourth of July and during the run of the LA County Fair, residents have had experiences in which people attending events at Fairplex have parked in the secluded neighborhood’s streets, Slocum said.

However, since August, people who do not live in the neighborhood have regularly been parking cars and recreational vehicles in the area, he said.

Torres said the city created the problem by restricting parking on nearby Fulton Road.

“Things got worst when parking restrictions were set,” he said Tuesday.

City Engineer Rene Guerrero said Tuesday city staff and members of the Pomona Police Department worked to restrict parking along the east side of Fulton, which is within the Pomona city limits. The west side of Fulton is within the city of La Verne and that city had restricted parking on that street before Pomona did, he said.

The city moved to restrict parking on Fulton after receiving complaints that people were parking cars and recreational vehicles on the street and leaving trash and in some cases human waste behind, Guerrero said.

Torres said the people who are parking in the neighborhood don’t live there and are making residents feel uneasy.

During the course of the discussion, community activist Ben Wood asked what the process was for establishing preferential parking districts. Recently, residents of an apartment complex on Erie Street on the city’s westside complained that without warning, signs appeared limiting parking in the neighborhood to residents with parking permits.

In that situation, residents of the complex did not have a chance to speak at a public hearing because none was conducted, Wood said.

“Where is the consideration for the tenants?” he asked.

Guerrero explained two methods exist for creating a parking district. One is a city-initiated method, such as was used in the Fair Avenue case. Because the city is calling for the creation of the district, notices are sent out and a public hearing is conducted, he said.

Residents also can request to establish a parking district, Guerrero said, and they can do so by collecting signatures on a petition. If 75 percent of residents support the creation of a district and city staff determine such an arrangement is warranted then the request is approved without the need for a hearing, he said.

The latter was the case for the Erie neighborhood.

Mayor Tim Sandoval asked city staff to take steps leading to the modification of the city’s regulations in this regard.

In the Erie neighborhood case, the majority of residents of the primarily single family home area sought the district’s creation, “but in this case, it impacted folks living in the apartment complex,” Sandoval said Tuesday.

Sandoval said he understands the concerns of those who live in the Erie neighborhood and would like to park on their street, but he also understands the needs of the apartment complex tenants who live in a development with limited parking and need to park on the street.

Tenants should be notified of requests to establish such districts in order to voice their opinions before a district is created, Sandoval said.

“For me, it is about fairness and equity,” Sandoval said.

In the case of the Fair Avenue district, if residents had initiated the creation of the district, there would have been a one-time $40 parking permit fee for the administration of the program. But since the city was behind the proposal, staff asked for that fee to be waived, and the council agreed.

Guerrero said the city will waive the fee for residents of the neighborhood and issue each household two resident permits and two guest permits.

Should residents have a one-time event that will result in a higher number of guests, they can request additional one-day guest permits, he said.

Once signs are posted in the Fair Avenue neighborhood, the restrictions will be enforced, Guerrero said.

In the meantime, neighborhood residents can go to the Public Works Department counter of Pomona City Hall, 505 S. Garey Ave., and present a driver’s license, water bill or other proof of residency, to be issued parking permits.

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